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The Truth, the Partial Truth, and Something Like the Truth, So Help Me God

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The Truth, the Partial Truth, and Something Like the Truth, So Help Me God The Truth, the Partial Truth, and Something Like the Truth, So Help Me God Clay Chandler "Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children." Oliver Wendell Holmes IN OCTOBER OF 1993 DALLIN H. OAKS, an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Steve Benson, editorial cartoonist for the Arizona Republic and eldest grandson of former LDS president Ezra Taft Benson, had an argument in a public place. Their dispute centered on the role played by Apostle Boyd K. Packer in the September excommunica- tion of Paul James Toscano. According to both men, this had been a sub- ject of discussion between them during two "confidential" meetings. Their disagreement was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of people across the nation as they opened their newspapers and saw headlines like: "Cartoonist Says Oaks Lied to Protect Fellow Apostle,"1 "Oaks: 'I've Been Victim of Double-Decker Deceit',"2 and "Benson Replies, Charges Oaks with Dissembling." 3 These two men obviously had very different interpretations of their shared experiences. For outside observers, it is not possible to determine exactly what transpired between them. One or both of them may have lied. One or both of them may have been intentionally deceptive. One or both of them may have been deceptive while fully believing that they 1. Vern Anderson, "Cartoonist Says Oaks Lied to Protect Fellow Apostle," The Salt Lake Tribune, 12 October 1993, B-l. 2. Dallin H. Oaks, "Oaks: 'I've Been Victim of Double-Decker Deceit/" The Salt Lake Tri- bune, 21 October 1993, Commentary page. 3. Steve Benson, "Benson Replies, Charges Oaks with Dissembling," The Salt Lake Tri- bune, 25 October 1993, Commentary page. 98 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought were being completely truthful. The veracity of their statements, while important, is less intriguing than the fact that an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ was accused of lying to protect another apostle. Many, if not most, members of the Mormon church find it difficult to believe that one of their apostles would lie. It doesn't fit their image of a man called to be "a special witness for Christ."4 Yet could there be times when a prophet or an apostle might be justified in lying? If so, under what circumstances? What effect does lying have on followers? The in- tent of this article is not to place blame, but to deal in a straightforward way with the touchy subject of truth and deception. Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines truth as "relation- ship, conformity, or agreement with fact or reality," and defines a lie as: "1) to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive; and 2) to create a false or misleading impression." Lying is just one form of the much larger category known as deception. One can deceive without lying, but the intent of lying is always to deceive. For example, there is a difference between telling a story I know to be false, and telling a true story but se- lectively omitting details to alter the listener's perception of the truth. The first is lying, the second deception. "Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love."—Kahlil Gibran The logical place to begin this examination is the scriptures, which invariably take an absolutist position with regard to lying. In Leviticus 19:11 we read, "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another." In the New Testament, Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "Where- fore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another" (Eph. 4:25). From the Book of Mormon: "Woe unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to hell" (2 Ne. 9:34). Later Christ speaks of the time when Israel shall be gathered and the lost tribes return: "And it shall come to pass that all lyings and deceivings, and en- vyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away" (3 Ne. 21:19). Finally, in the Doctrine and Covenants we are told who will inherit the Telestial Kingdom, the lowest of the three heavenly degrees of glory: "These are they who are liars, and sorcerers, and adul- terers, and whoremongers and whosoever loves and makes a lie" (D&C 76:103). The absolute prohibition against lying found in the scriptures seems simple and clear until one begins asking questions such as: Is truthful- 4. Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. by Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1954-56), 146. See also D&C 27:12,107:23. Chandler: The Truth, the Partial Truth, and Something Like the Truth 99 ness a unique moral value? How does it compare with other moral val- ues like compassion, charity, discretion, or friendship? Do we have a right to the truth from others? What would a world be like wherein everyone told all the truth all the time? In light of the scriptural pro- nouncements above, consider the following statement from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest: "The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either and modern literature a complete impossibility!"5 David Nyberg, in his book, The Varnished Truth, examines the moral complexity of truth-telling and deception. He begins by dividing the pre- dominant theories into two camps, which he calls "top down" and "bot- tom up," and he assigns absolutist theories to the former.6 An example of an absolutist, or top-down, advocate would be Immanuel Kant, who said: Truthfulness in statements which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvantage accru- ing to himself or to another. Thus the definition of a lie as merely an inten- tional untruthful declaration to another person does not require the addi- tional condition that it must harm another. .For a lie always harms another; if not some other particular man, still it harms mankind generally, for it vitiates the source of law itself 7 Another absolutist, Socrates, wanted all poets and storytellers banned from Athens because he believed their fictions and myths would confuse children about the truth; if they were ever to learn to distinguish truth from fiction, they would have to first unlearn what they had learned.8 On the other hand, in her influential book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, Sissela Bok outlines a top-down theory which is absolutist in nature yet recognizes there must be occasional exceptions to the rule. She, like Kant, believes that lies are intrinsically harmful not only to the de- ceived, but also to the liars themselves and to society in general. In the fol- lowing passage, she explains how lies can harm society in the same way a virus can infect and destroy a body: 5. Oscar Wilde, act 1 of The Importance of Being Earnest, in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 6. David Nyberg, The Varnished Truth: Truth Telling and Deceiving in Ordinary Life (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), 18. 7. Immanuel Kant, "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives," in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy, ed. and trans, by Lewis White Beck, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 346-47. 8. Nyberg, 64-65. 100 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought [E]ven if [liars] make the effort to estimate the consequences to individuals— themselves and others—of their lies, they often fail to consider the many ways in which deception can spread and give rise to practices very damag- ing to human communities. These practices clearly do not affect only iso- lated individuals. The veneer of social trust is often thin. As lies spread—by imitation, or in retaliation, or to forestall suspected deception—trust is dam- aged. Yet trust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers: and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse."9 Bok nevertheless acknowledges occasional exceptions to the abso- lutist prohibition: I have to agree that there are at least some circumstances which warrant a lie. And foremost among them are those where innocent lives are at stake, and where only a lie can deflect the danger. But, in taking such a position, it would be wrong to lose the profound concern which the absolutist theolo- gians and philosophers express—the concern for the harm to trust and to oneself from lying, quite apart from any immediate effects from any one lie.10 In addition to "avoiding harm," other excuses for dissembling in- clude the derivation of benefits, fairness, or veracity. However, Bok cau- tions, none of these excuses are acceptable "if the liar knew of a truthful alternative to secure the benefit, avoid the harm, or protect fairness. Even if a lie saves a life, it is unwarranted if the liar was aware that a truthful statement could have done the same."11 Finally, Bok distinguishes between "excusable" lies and "justifiable" lies. Justifiable lies must not only avoid harm and produce benefits, fair- ness, or veracity, they must also be defensible as "just, right, or proper, by providing adequate reasons. It means to hold up to some standard, such as a religious or legal or moral standard.
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